Chapter 304: The Liver
After Frank crossed over, he didn't drink himself senseless like the original "Frank."
He still drank, sure—but nowhere near that level.
To some extent, that actually slowed the progression of his cirrhosis. Otherwise, he would've landed in the hospital long ago.
For alcoholic liver disease, the best—and really the only—treatment is to quit drinking completely.
But Frank's condition was already too severe. End-stage cirrhosis. The kind where quitting alcohol no longer makes a difference.
Still, in a strange way, trading cancer for cirrhosis wasn't the worst outcome.
Compared to terminal cancer—where there's essentially no hope—cirrhosis at least leaves one option on the table: a liver transplant.
But using his children's livers?
That was something Frank would never agree to.
Of course, what Frank didn't know was that the kids had already undergone compatibility testing in secret—and not a single one of them matched. Even if they wanted to donate, it wouldn't have been possible.
That meant only one option remained: finding someone else willing to "donate" a liver.
Logically speaking, Frank now had money. And in a modern, capital-driven society like the United States—where money could make even ghosts push carts—getting a suitable liver should have been possible.
But reality was far more complicated.
If the goal were simply to obtain a liver, that part alone wasn't difficult.
Frank had been in the underworld long enough. He knew plenty of people. With a bit of networking, he could easily get in touch with organ traffickers.
Most of the black-market trade revolved around kidneys—but as long as the money was right, livers weren't completely off the table either.
However, organs aren't something you can just buy and use.
Compatibility testing is required—and whether a match can be found is the biggest problem of all.
Even Fiona and the other biological children underwent testing and still didn't match. A liver transplant wasn't possible with them—let alone with a liver bought from some stranger.
Sure, when purchasing an organ, you can specify conditions in advance: blood type, liver type, various indicators, and demand that the seller provide an organ that meets those standards.
But this kind of transaction is strictly under-the-table—cash for goods, no questions asked, no sunlight allowed.
The seller can hand over a liver along with a stack of test reports, confidently claiming that everything meets your requirements.
But there's no way to verify whether that's true.
Once the deal is done, they take the money and disappear.
If you later discover the organ doesn't meet the requirements, there's no customer service to complain to.
On the spot, proper testing is impossible anyway. Professional verification requires specialized equipment, trained personnel, and often a laboratory setting. At a shady transaction site, the most you can do is a basic blood-type check—A, B, AB, or O. Nothing more.
So hoping to buy a liver that just happens to be a perfect match?
It's not quite like fishing a needle out of the ocean—but the odds are about the same as winning the lottery.
Not the Western kind of lottery, either—but the East Asian kind, the one where they spend half an hour "calculating statistics" before finally announcing the results.
On top of that, organs like livers are extremely expensive.
A single liver can cost thousands, even tens of thousands.
It's not a popsicle you grab at the supermarket for a few bucks.
And Frank had already spent a lot of money recently—buying factory buildings, renovations, funding Karen's website projects. What he had left was only a few hundred thousand at most.
Of course, Walter's and Pinkman's money was still technically in Frank's hands.
If he dipped into their funds, he could probably afford quite a few livers.
But when you think about it that way, it's like buying stacks of scratch-off tickets and hoping one of them hits the jackpot.
It sounds ridiculous.
Setting aside what would happen if Frank touched Walter's and Pinkman's money without permission—
The more important issue was that even if Frank wanted to buy that many livers, he probably couldn't.
Organ traffickers don't keep large inventories. Most of them only have a handful of organs at any given time. Supply on the black market is perpetually scarce.
That's because the wealthy hoard organs.
Even if they don't need them now—what if they do someday?
Accidents happen. A sudden car crash, a major surgery requiring a transplant—what if there's no suitable organ available when that moment comes?
Even if the stored organs don't match the buyer themselves, they might match a relative or a friend.
People are afraid of death—especially the rich.
The richer someone is, the more terrified they are of dying.
Some wealthy individuals even invest heavily in cutting-edge tech—cloning research, organ cloning, even human cloning. The idea is simple: if something goes wrong, they'll just replace the failing part.
Movies and TV shows often reflect this reality. Films like The Island put it bluntly on screen—though in reality, cloning technology hasn't reached that level yet.
Until cloning becomes viable, the rich can only stockpile organs as insurance. Some even use specialized "organ banks" that manage and preserve these assets for them.
And these days, there are a lot of rich people.
That's why organs are in extreme shortage. Nearly every decent-quality organ has already been snapped up. Whatever still circulates on the market usually comes with problems—poor health, latent disease, hidden defects.
So even though Frank now had some money, trying to buy an organ for transplantation was still incredibly difficult.
Compared to the truly wealthy, Frank wasn't rich at all.
At best, he'd just barely escaped poverty.
If Frank wanted to survive through a liver transplant, it would ultimately come down to fate—pure luck.
Since being hospitalized for cirrhosis, Frank's children had been staying with him constantly, unable to do much of anything else.
All he did each day was lie in bed, watch TV, and scroll through his phone.
"Pinkman's staying with me today. You all go home," Frank said, shooing his kids away and leaving only Pinkman behind.
Once everyone had left, Pinkman pulled out a phone and handed it to Frank.
"Walter… I've got some bad news on my end," Frank said into the phone.
Earlier, Walter had just given Frank some good news—his lung resection surgery had gone perfectly. His life had been extended. The shadow of cancer was finally gone.
But when Frank shared his bad news, Walter fell silent.
After a long while, a heavy sigh came through the receiver.
Fate really did have a cruel sense of humor.
Not long ago, it was Walter who had been told he was dying—on borrowed time.
Now Walter was recovering, while Frank had become the one on the brink.
It was as if God Himself were mocking these two old men—both willing to shoulder darkness and sin for the sake of their families.